


when the autumn moon is bright

by lesbianryuko



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Getting to Know Each Other, Grief/Mourning, Not Really Character Death, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Recovery, Running Away, The Three Houses AU Bang (Fire Emblem), Verbal Abuse, Werewolf Hunters, non-sexual nudity, wrt bernie's father in the beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:41:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29053785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianryuko/pseuds/lesbianryuko
Summary: Ever since the attack that took her stepbrother from her, Edelgard and her friend Claude have taken up arms as werewolf hunters. One night while on the hunt, Edelgard stumbles across an injured girl in the woods and offers her help. The girl, Bernadetta, has nowhere to go, having just escaped from her abusive household, so Edelgard allows her to stay with her until she’s healed. Little does she know that the sweet, shy young woman she’s befriended is one of the creatures she’s bent on destroying.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Claude von Riegan, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Bernadetta von Varley, Minor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan - Relationship
Comments: 17
Kudos: 38
Collections: The Three Houses AU Bang, clouds wlw favs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi!! this is the first chapter of my AU bang fic!! second chapter will be up ideally by mid-february! an accompanying art piece was drawn by the wonderful @oneletterdiff, which you can find [here](https://twitter.com/oneletterdiff/status/1354978645031354371)!
> 
> so yeah this is gonna be pretty heavy at the start (please note the tags for content warnings) but i PROMISE it gets better!! fic title comes from "howl" by florence + the machine because i am insane and also a lesbian

_a man who’s pure of heart and says his prayers by night_  
_may still become a wolf when the autumn moon is bright_

It’s quiet.

Save for the faint song of crickets and the trees rustling in the chilly autumn wind, there isn’t a sound to be heard from the forest. The clouds don’t help; with the light of the moon obstructed, it’s even harder to spot their targets. Crouched down behind a shrub, Edelgard squints into the darkness, hoping to see something, anything, but the only movement comes from the occasional leaf drifting to the ground.

_Crunch._

Edelgard whips her head around, and Claude, only a few feet behind her, holds a hand up. “Easy there, Princess,” he whispers. “It’s just me.”

“You had better be more careful,” Edelgard hisses. “And stop calling me that.”

“Nothing’s biting,” Claude replies. He steps on another dead leaf, which crackles underneath his boot. Edelgard thinks it’s the loudest thing she’s ever heard. “Maybe if we make a little noise, they’ll come to us.”

Edelgard ignores him, pushing a stray white hair out of her face and shoving it back into her ponytail. One hand rests on her rifle, always.

“Hey, maybe there aren’t any out tonight,” Claude says. “Maybe they’re all busy being—I don’t know—human?” He sounds almost hopeful.

“They’re not human,” Edelgard says. “Besides, it’s almost the full moon. They’ll be out.”

For a few moments, neither of them say anything; they just watch and wait.

Then: a howl.

“Told you,” Edelgard says. She aims her gun in the direction of the sound. It’s showtime.

Claude sighs. His knuckles are pale from how tightly he grips his weapon, a silver dagger with a running deer engraved on the blade. He’s never really liked this. In his words, the main reason he decided to join her in her quest for revenge was because he didn’t want her to go it alone. Then again, it’s not like Edelgard particularly enjoys it either. She’s just gotten used to it. None of this would be happening if it weren’t for—

A lone gray wolf bursts out of the brush, its hackles raised. A werewolf—Edelgard can tell by its lack of a tail. (“A _telltale_ sign, you might say,” Claude once quipped. Edelgard had smacked him.)

The wolf’s lip curls into a snarl, and a low growl rumbles in its throat. No doubt it can smell them.

It takes a few steps forward, out from behind the cover of a tree. Edelgard has a perfect shot at its skull; she should be able to kill it with one blow. Good—silver bullets aren’t cheap.

She aims. The wolf looks up.

She fires.

The werewolf falls to the ground with a whimper and a dull _thud_. Beside her, Claude breathes another sigh, a mixture of relief and bitter resignation. No, he’s never liked this. But they don’t have very much of a choice—not when it comes to vengeance.

—

They come for Dimitri in the evening.

Edelgard has seen it so many times now. She knows exactly when the doorbell is going to ring, while they’re sitting in the living room of the house she rents with Claude and Dimitri, chatting and drinking tea. If she could, she’d stand up and answer the door before Dimitri got to it, and she’d punch that strange man with his glowing green eyes right in the jaw and tell him to never show his face—human or wolf—near the little house ever again.

But she can’t, because that’s not what she did. She couldn’t have known what would happen, but she still kicks herself every night when she’s trapped in the body of her old self, forced to relive this sickening scene over and over, forced to remember exactly how she felt and what she thought.

She doesn’t hear the words exchanged at the door, doesn’t know how the man convinced Dimitri to follow him outside. She doesn’t know why Dimitri leads him around to the back of the house, and she doesn’t know why, when she peers out the window, she spots three more men with oddly glowing eyes lingering near the woods. She doesn’t know where they came from or the reason they gave for being there. All she knows is that, in the blink of an eye, there are no longer four strange men in her backyard; instead, there are wolves, large ones, without tails.

All at once, they lunge for Dimitri—sweet Dimitri, her _brother_ , who was forgiving when she was not, who cared too much when she cared not enough, who struggled and fought against his own brain and emerged with the tools to win against it—Dimitri, who is no longer here, but should be—and she stares in horror as they tackle him into the grass.

In a flash, she’s out the back door, with their uncle Volkhard, who had been visiting them that day, right on her heels. Her legs shake as she skids to a stop mere feet from where the wolves have Dimitri pinned down. None of them so much as glance at her; they’re focused only on the meal right in front of them, their claws ripping and tearing at his clothes, teeth sinking into his flesh while he tries in vain to fight them off.

In the back of her mind, Edelgard thinks about calling an ambulance, but she left her phone inside when she ran out into the backyard, and besides, she can barely even feel her legs, let alone move them. All she can do is watch as Dimitri writhes in agony on the ground, as the wolves rip him open, his arms, his chest, his neck, his face. His hands, curled into pale white fists, stretch outward, reaching for anything—thick fur, a helping hand, _anything_. The wolves’ fangs clamp down on his fingers before Edelgard can even think to grab them, and Dimitri howls as though he were a wolf himself.

One of them tears his eye out of its socket. She’s never heard him scream so loud.

Time stretches out like a piece of taffy. The attack likely only lasts a few minutes, but it feels like hours that Edelgard stands there, frozen, before the wolves disperse and flee into the forest behind the house.

When she sees Dimitri’s body, she falls to her knees next to him, ignoring the blood that seeps into her jeans. His skin is torn and shredded in strips, his body is rank with the smell of impending death, blood gushes from a gash in his neck, and his missing eye, the gaping hole where it should be…

This is the part where she always wakes up—soaked in sweat, breathing hard, and feeling like she’s about to vomit. Edelgard grabs the large bowl that she keeps by her bedside and retches, but hardly anything comes up.

She always wakes up just before she gets the chance to hold him one last time.

She hears footsteps a few seconds later, and then her bedroom door creaks open. Claude pads over to the bed and sits down next to her, resting a hand on her back as she heaves and heaves. When she finally catches her breath enough to set the bowl down and look up at him, she notices the dark circles under his eyes. Even in the dark, she can see the redness. He loved Dimitri just as much as she did, and he never got to tell him goodbye.

Edelgard rests her chin on top of his shoulder. “Have you slept at all tonight?” she murmurs into his neck.

“It doesn’t matter,” Claude says, which is code for _no_.

They don’t say anything else. They don’t need to. It’s been a few weeks since Dimitri’s gruesome death—this is practically routine for them now, holding on to each other through the nightmares, the sleepless nights, the stinging eyes and burning throats.

Volkhard had been the one to take him to the hospital, while Edelgard stayed home to make calls and keep watch in case the werewolves came back—for that’s what they were, she knew, even though she’d never encountered anything like them before. There was no mistaking what she saw, the way their bodies seemed to morph and shift like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Claude had been working late when it happened, and he rushed home as soon as she called. It wasn’t long after that they got the news: Dimitri had died on the way to the hospital.

From there, everything slowed down and sped up at the same time. Life as they knew it stopped in its tracks, and around them the world kept going, heartlessly and without sympathy. They never got to see his body before it was cremated. Edelgard isn’t sure she would’ve even wanted to.

Her father first taught her to shoot a gun many years ago. After Dimitri died, werewolf hunting seemed like only the most logical next step, and since then she’s been going out most nights to various forests in the area, not only to find the bastard wolves that killed her brother, but also to prevent the same horror from happening to anyone else. Right now, that’s her main reason for getting up in the morning.

“Hey,” Claude says, “I have to work late tomorrow night. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come hunting with you.”

“That’s alright,” Edelgard says without looking up at him. “I’ve gone alone before.”

“Not during a full moon,” Claude says. “Just…be careful, okay?”

In the back of her mind, Edelgard can hear what he doesn’t say: _I don’t want to lose you, too._

—

Bernadetta has had enough.

It takes a lot for her to reach this point. She’s spent her whole life learning how to sit down and shut up while her father’s scolding turns to mush in her mind. Up until now, she’s taken everything he’s thrown at her, a punching bag in the shape of a twenty-three-year-old woman.

The final straw comes the morning of the full moon. In the middle of cooking herself breakfast, hurrying so that she can return to her room as soon as possible, Bernadetta gets a call telling her that she hasn’t been hired for the waitressing job she interviewed for last week. That’s not surprising, but her father overhears the conversation from his seat on the living room couch and flies into a rage.

“Useless!” he snaps, bursting into the kitchen, where Bernadetta is busy frying eggs in a pan.

Bernadetta bows her head and focuses even more intently on her cooking, not daring to look up at her father’s face. She can already see it in her mind, red and twisted with anger.

“How will you get a man to marry you when you can’t even land a measly job?” he yells. “When you won’t even leave the house? I bet you fudged the interview on purpose so you could keep mooching off of me, didn’t you, you insolent brat?”

Bernadetta stares at the eggs and nothing but the eggs. She stares so hard her vision blurs at the edges.

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you!” her father says.

Bernadetta wants to say, _But I’m trying to cook! You said women have to be good cooks, right?_ But the words die, as they always do, before they can even reach her tongue. She knows she should at least glance in his direction, but she can’t bring herself to move her head.

She flips the eggs.

In the split second that the pan is in the air, her father snatches her free hand, her left one, and shoves it onto the burner.

Bernadetta yelps and drops the pan back onto the stove, yanking her hand away and clutching it to her chest. She can already feel the skin of her palm starting to pucker and blister. For a moment, all she can do is stand there, stunned and in pain. This isn’t normal. The yelling is, but he’s never physically hurt her to such a degree.

And yet, here she is, her hand burning from something that was probably a long time coming. She forces herself to look up at the man responsible, but the sting of tears obscures the details of his face, and she’s glad for it. Something smells like it’s burning. She can’t tell if it’s the eggs or her flesh.

“Let this serve as a reminder,” her father says coldly. “You are to obey, whether it be a father or a husband. Not that you’ll ever get one at this rate. You had better have another interview scheduled. Mark my words, you _will_ learn to serve, and maybe—just maybe—some well-to-do young man will find you satisfactory.”

With that, he storms away, leaving Bernadetta in the kitchen with her burnt eggs and tears rolling down her cheeks. She lowers herself to her knees on the hard, unforgiving floor, lips curled back in anguish. Her mouth forms the words before she can even think about what they mean, hissing softly against her teeth like the sound of a candle burning out, so quiet she’s not sure if she’s speaking them aloud or just mouthing them: _I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take it anymore._

—

For most of the day, Bernadetta locks herself in her room upstairs, preparing. She doesn’t know where she’ll go or what she’ll do, but running away is her only shot at survival. If her father doesn’t end up killing her himself, she’s sure his escalating abuse will make her do something drastic—and permanent.

It’s been boiling inside her for so long now, she realizes. The incident this morning just opened her eyes to it. Today she saw a side of her father that was even more terrifying than his usual self. She saw a man who could snap and harm her at any moment. She tried to soothe her burns the best she could, and now there’s a bandage wrapped around her left hand, but she can’t fix her mind as easily. She knows that. She’s always known that. She’s read about these things online. The only way she can see herself truly reclaiming her life is by getting out of this environment.

Besides, if she’s really worthless, then leaving will lessen her parents’ “burden.”

She tries not to think about it like that.

Bernadetta has researched this countless times (with a VPN and in an incognito window, of course). She knows what to pack, almost as surely as if she’s been planning it for months. In a way, she has.

She grabs a duffel bag from her closet and stuffs it with her most important belongings: her best clothes, her favorite books, her stuffed animals, her sketchbook, some toiletries, and her laptop. Then she texts her mother at work: _Hey, what’s the code to the safe again? I’m applying for a job and I need my social security number but I can’t remember it. So sorry for bothering you!!_

It’s amazing how casual she can be over the internet.

Her mother takes the bait and responds with the combination. With both her parents now at work, Bernadetta sneaks into the den and unlocks the safe, where she finds every important document about herself since the day she was born. She takes everything that pertains to her and puts it all in a folder, which she slides into the bottom of the duffel bag.

She stays in her room all evening and tries to get some sleep, setting an alarm for around 11 p.m., when her parents will have gone to bed. She’s far too nervous, though, and tosses and turns for hours, double- and triple-checking everything in her head. This isn’t the end, she knows; it’s only the beginning of her journey to freedom. But she can’t start this journey without taking the first step, no matter how frightening it may be.

She must eventually fall asleep at some point, because the next thing she’s aware of is the buzz of her phone’s alarm startling her awake. She can see no lights from underneath her bedroom door; the house is dark and quiet, just as she expected it to be.

With her phone’s flashlight, Bernadetta goes through her room one last time to make sure she hasn’t forgotten anything. Now that she’s faced with the reality of her plan, part of her mourns the loss of these four walls that she’s made into her home over the years. She can find another one, though, somewhere she won’t be screamed at and criticized for everything she does or doesn’t do. She knows this.

Finally, when she’s finished saying her farewells to the room that has kept her safe for so long, Bernadetta shoves her feet into her sneakers, grabs her bag, stuffs her wallet into her back pocket, and opens her bedroom door just a crack, clutching her phone in one hand. She slides through the narrow opening, careful not to bump her bag against the wall, and shuts the door as quietly as a graveyard at night.

Her heart pounds as she tiptoes down the stairs, anticipating the sound of a creaky floorboard, all too eager to foil her plans. When she reaches the bottom of the staircase without incident, she’s tempted to sigh in relief, but she presses her lips shut to ward it off. She’s not out of the woods just yet.

The front door is only a few paces away from the staircase, and Bernadetta imagines herself light as air, feet silent as a cat’s paws, while she steps across the hardwood floor.

She undoes the lock slowly, so the _click_ is as quiet as possible—one can never be too cautious, especially in situations like this. She wants to just fling the door open and run out into the night without looking back, but she forces herself to turn the knob carefully, again opening the door just wide enough for her to slip through. The cool autumn air rushes in, and Bernadetta prays her parents aren’t somehow sensitive enough to notice it.

She steps out into the darkness and closes the door delicately behind her. Then she pulls her wallet out of her pocket, holding it by the keys so they don’t jingle, and locks the front door gently, deliberately.

Bernadetta turns around and surveys her neighborhood. There are still a few houses with lights on. She can’t risk any of her neighbors seeing her, so she circles around her house and heads through her grassy backyard, down near the main road.

It occurs to her then that she doesn’t know where she could even go. She has no other family or friends who could take her in—not anywhere near here, at least. She knows someone online who lives several hours away; she could contact them. Perhaps if she makes it to the nearest bus or train station, she can find her way to their house for the time being. All she knows is that she needs to get away. She’s got about eleven hours at the most before her parents find that she’s not in her room.

It’s going to be a long night.

The buses don’t run this late, she soon realizes, and the nearest train station is about fifty miles away. She could try to call an Uber, but there’s no way she’d feel safe hopping into a stranger’s car alone in the middle of the night. Hitchhiking isn’t an option for similar reasons. Her only solution, then, is to get as far away from her house as possible before the sun comes up and she can catch a bus. She wishes she’d at least learned to ride a bike.

Bernadetta tries not to stay too close to the main road; she doesn’t want anyone driving to see her and wonder what she’s doing wandering around this late. She follows the general path according to the map on her phone, keeping to bushes and trees whenever she can, but her cell service worsens the further she goes, and the number of streetlights and other signs of human habitation steadily decreases. This must be the road that goes through the woods, rather than the one that leads into town. She was so nervous, she didn’t even stop to think when she picked a direction. She’s gone too far to turn back now, though, so she pushes herself deeper into the trees.

A pair of headlights appears in the distance, growing larger and larger with every second that passes. With a start, Bernadetta realizes how close she’s gotten to the road; the driver is sure to see her.

She dives into the bushes and crouches down, putting her arms over her head like she’s doing a tornado drill in school. The car still sounds too close, so she crawls farther into the brush, the grass likely rubbing stains into the knees of her jeans.

She waits for the car to pass. It doesn’t.

That can’t be right. No one would stop out here this late at night unless they were plotting something nefarious. And yet, when Bernadetta glances over her shoulder, she finds the car parked on the side of the road, and someone’s hopping out of the driver’s seat.

Bernadetta doesn’t think; she just runs, her legs propelling her into the forest. Hanging branches scratch her face, and she shoves them away, ignoring the stinging in her palms. She nearly trips over a few roots and shrubs, but she keeps going, blood rushing in her ears, and doesn’t stop until she can no longer see the figure of the car or its driver, can no longer hear the sound of its doors slamming.

Once she’s certain that she’s gotten away, Bernadetta leans against a large, thick tree and sighs in relief. After a few moments, she checks her phone—it’s been about an hour since she left, and the full moon hangs high in the sky, its light obscured by the clouds.

Bernadetta slides to the ground and wraps her arms around her legs, her chest heaving as she catches her breath. She doesn’t have much time to rest, but she allows herself at least a few moments to regain her strength.

It’s then, as she rests her chin on her knees and stares out into the brush, that she notices it.

She’s not quite sure what it is at first. It looks like a small, round light, and it blinks in and out of sight a few times. If it were summer, she might have thought it was a firefly. She leans forward and squints.

Her eyes have long adjusted to the darkness, so it doesn’t take much for her to make out a silhouette surrounding the light. It moves slowly, gradually increasing in size, and as it does, Bernadetta thinks she can hear a low grumble coming from the same direction.

She puts the pieces together too late. The single eye threw her off. It’s only when the creature pounces, canines flashing in the darkness, that she understands what it is she’s been looking at.

A wolf.

Bernadetta catches a glimpse of whitish-brown fur and a horrific scar where its right eye should be, but that’s all she sees before it tackles her, its teeth in her hair, dragging her to the ground. She yelps and swings her arms wildly, but the wolf is too fast, and it’s not like she can fight against an apex predator. All she can do is try to run, but the beast has her beaten in that department too, its body huge and heavy on her chest. Still, she can’t help but flail hopelessly.

Its claws shred her sweatshirt fabric as if it’s a tissue. Bernadetta gasps, but the gashes it carves into her upper arms and shoulders are nothing compared to what she feels when the wolf sinks its teeth into her neck.

Bernadetta screams and closes her eyes at the stinging, searing pain. She can feel a claw against her forehead, a harsh nip at her side, another at her thigh, but it’s all starting to blend together in her mind, a jumble of agony, of blood wet and warm on her skin, of claws and fangs tearing her apart.

And then it stops.

The pain doesn’t stop, but the attack does. Cautiously, Bernadetta opens one eye.

The wolf crouches a few paces away, whining and rubbing its face with its paws. Its body shudders. It almost looks like it’s shifting, like it’s changing into something else. Bernadetta almost passes it off as an injury-induced hallucination or a trick of the darkness, but as she watches and listens, focusing on what’s in front of her instead of the splitting pain, the wolf’s body soon begins to resemble that of a human’s, and its cries transform from canine whimpers to the groan of a man.

Both of Bernadetta’s eyes are wide open now, and she stares in awe as a tall, broad-shouldered young man kneels in front of her, fully clothed, with messy blond hair and an eyepatch covering his scar. In horror, he stares down at his hands and then at Bernadetta.

“No,” he whispers, quiet enough that Bernadetta has to strain to hear. “No…no…why? What…have I done?” His shoulders shake. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”

Before Bernadetta can even think to say anything, the man stands up on wobbling legs and runs clumsily away, deeper into the forest, guilt written not only on his face, but all over his body.

Bernadetta doesn’t know what to make of it. She can barely think right now, and when she tries to move, it feels like she’s ripping at the seams. So much for running away.

She should’ve never left her house. Bad things like this always happen to her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [edelgard voice] i've only known bernadetta for two hours but if anything were to happen to her i'd kill everyone in this room and then myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? being late for when i said i'd post a new chapter? it must be a day that ends in y
> 
> anyway! it's here! it's actually like, a normal chapter length! and this fic is constantly bouncing between fluff/tenderness and angst (sometimes both? at the same time?) so uhhh buckle up i guess! woo

No one else is ever out in the woods this late at night. No one would dare. Their town lies in the north, where the trees are thick and the cold isn’t the only thing that bites. Everyone knows that bears and wolves make their homes amidst the evergreens.

So when Edelgard hears a distinctly human scream, she bolts in the direction of the sound.

She clings to her rifle with both hands, preparing at any moment to have to shoot something down. Yet, after that one terrified shout, the forest is eerily silent. The only footsteps are her own, and the only rustling comes from her pushing her way through the brush. The full moon is out, but there’s no chorus of howls, no shining pairs of eyes in the darkness. She runs faster.

She’s so focused on whatever could be lurking in the distance that she almost doesn’t see the body right at her feet.

Edelgard gasps, and the person yelps and sits up quickly, then groans in pain from the movement. It dawns on Edelgard that she probably looks intimidating, dressed in dark clothes with a gun in her hands.

“Hey, hang on,” she says quietly, sliding the gun over her shoulder so that it hangs by its sling against her back. “I won’t hurt you.”

“Wh-what are you doing with that?” asks the stranger—a girl, presumably. Her lip trembles in fear.

In the light of the moon, Edelgard looks her up and down: a skinny young woman, probably close to Edelgard’s age, with sleek purple hair, a duffel bag half-slung over one shoulder, and blood seeping from a variety of bites and scratches. Something must have attacked her, but it’s nowhere to be found now.

“Hunting,” Edelgard says. It’s not even a lie. “What were _you_ doing out here?”

An even more panicked look crosses the girl’s face. “Uh…running,” she says lamely.

Touché, Edelgard supposes; she wasn’t completely honest in her explanation either. It doesn’t matter anyway, not right now, not when this girl is clearly injured. She resists the desire to ask what happened, what did this. She can come back and hunt another night, but the girl’s safety requires immediate attention.

“I might need to call an ambulance,” she says. The girl’s eyes widen.

“No!” she says. She looks like she’s holding back the urge to shake her head wildly, her teeth gritted. “No, no, you can’t. My parents will find out, and they can’t, they _can’t_. I-I got my tetanus shot last year; I’ll be fine. I couldn’t afford it anyway.”

Edelgard frowns. The girl should probably be looked at by a medical professional, but if she won’t go to the hospital, Edelgard knows how to dress these sorts of wounds. If worse comes to worst, she has a couple of friends in med school; she could always call one of them and ask for their opinion. Besides, unless the girl was attacked by a coyote, which is unlikely, the chances of her getting rabies from this are incredibly slim.

“Fine,” she says with a sigh. “Let me take you back to my place. I can get you cleaned up. You really shouldn’t be out here.”

The girl nods slowly.

Edelgard doesn’t need to ask her if she can walk; she’s seen enough already to know the answer to that.

She kneels down. “I’m going to carry you back to my car, alright?”

“Okay,” the girl says. Her voice is still shaky, but she doesn’t sound quite as panicked as before.

Edelgard burrows her arms under the girl’s legs and back and lifts her up bridal style. The girl hisses in pain. Her duffel bag hangs limply from her arm.

“What’s your name, by the way?” Edelgard asks as she carries the girl through the trees and up the mild slope that leads to the road. “I’m Edelgard.”

“Oh, uh, Bernadetta,” the girl says.

“Well, Bernadetta,” Edelgard says, an edge of determination in her voice, “let’s get you patched up.”

As she reaches the edge of the forest, Edelgard hears the wolves start howling.

—

Within the span of an hour, Bernadetta’s whole world has changed. When she woke up this morning, could she have imagined that by half past midnight, she’d be lying injured in the back seat of a white-haired stranger’s car?

The car, as it turns out, is the very same one that startled Bernadetta into the forest in the first place. She supposes it’s only fitting that the driver ended up being the one to rescue her from the attack.

She’s not sure what she’ll tell Edelgard, or when. She’s sure she’ll have to at least give some explanation about the situation with her parents. As for what she saw in the woods—the wolf who transformed into a man—that, she probably won’t speak of. After all, who would believe her?

They don’t talk much on the drive to Edelgard’s place. Edelgard mentions that she rents a small house with a friend out near another patch of woods. It sounds nice, being out on her own, free to do as she pleases, but not completely alone.

Part of her is worried—what if this is all a trap, and Edelgard is actually going to kill her?—but it’s not like she has any other options, not after the day she’s had. Besides, for some reason, Edelgard isn’t quite as frightening to her as a lot of other strangers would be. She’s intimidating, but in a way that’s more impressive and awe-inspiring than scary. Her voice always sounds strong and firm, and she holds her head high. She’s the kind of person Bernadetta could see herself looking up to.

When they reach the house, Edelgard comes around the back to pick Bernadetta up. As she moves Bernadetta from the cushions, Bernadetta notices the bloodstains she’s left behind.

“Ah! I’m sorry!” she stammers. “I’ll pay for the damages! I promise!” _Great job, Bernie; a stranger shows you kindness, and how do you repay her? By bleeding all over her fucking car! Great! Wonderful!_

Edelgard frowns. “What?” Then her eyes land on the blood. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I can have it cleaned then. No big deal.” She chuckles lightly. “No need to apologize for bleeding.”

Of course, if it had been her father’s car, Bernadetta would have had to apologize and much more for staining such fine upholstery with her blood. The world is already so different outside of his grasp.

Edelgard carries Bernadetta over her shoulder so that she has a free hand to unlock the front door. When she switches a light on, Bernadetta catches a brief glimpse of the living room and kitchen before Edelgard brings her down the hall to the bathroom and sets her gently on top of the closed toilet lid.

“Okay,” Edelgard says. “This is entirely up to you, but if you want, I can draw you a bath. You’ve got a lot of cuts in different places, and it’s best to clean them with soap and water.”

Normally, Bernadetta would balk at the idea of undressing in front of someone she just met—but nothing about this situation is normal. Maybe it’s because she’s tired, or maybe it’s because Edelgard sounds sort of like a doctor, her voice calm and objective and nonjudgmental, or maybe it’s just because of everything that’s happened, but for some reason or another, her stomach doesn’t twist in embarrassment and fear like she expects it to.

“Okay,” Bernadetta says. Edelgard’s eyebrows raise, as if she wasn’t actually expecting Bernadetta to agree.

Bernadetta reaches to pull her ripped and bloodied sweatshirt over her head, but the wounds in her shoulder and waist scream in protest, and she stops, her teeth gritted together once again. At this rate, her jaw is going to start aching.

“I can help,” Edelgard says, kneeling down in front of her. “It might still hurt, though.”

Edelgard grabs the bottom of the sweatshirt—light brown, with a hood that looks like a bear’s head, complete with ears, eyes, and a nose—and pulls it slowly over Bernadetta’s head, sliding the sleeves off last. She does the same with Bernadetta’s T-shirt, her eyes never wandering, never feeling intrusive.

Edelgard helps her undress until she’s down to her bra and underwear, her injuries now in full view. She can’t help but glance at herself in the mirror and nearly cringes at how pitiful a sight she must be, her left hand still bandaged from the burn earlier, her spindly frame smeared with dirt and blood.

Edelgard stands back up and twists the knob above the bathtub so that water starts flowing out.

“Feel free to adjust the temperature,” she says. “You can get in whenever you’re ready. I’ll go put your clothes in the wash—I should be able to get most of the stains out. I’ll grab you a clean change of clothes, too, while I’m at it.”

“Oh, um, that’s not necessary,” Bernadetta says. She points to her duffel bag lying on the floor. “I have clothes in there.”

Edelgard tilts her head, likely wondering, once again, what Bernadetta could have possibly been doing out in the woods so late at night.

“Alright,” Edelgard says, picking up the pile of bloody clothes. “Well, I’ll get these in the wash awhile, and then I’ll be back to help you.”

“Okay,” Bernadetta says, her head spinning from just how prepared and businesslike Edelgard has been about all this. “Hey, Edelgard…thank you.”

Edelgard, halfway out the door, turns around, a startled look on her face. “Oh—it’s nothing.”

She rushes out the door, but Bernadetta thinks she sees the smallest hint of a blush.

Bernadetta pulls off her bra and underwear and dips one foot gingerly into the slowly filling tub. It’s a bit hot for her taste, so she adjusts the temperature, then steps fully into the shallow water and lowers herself in with a sigh.

Only a few minutes pass of her sitting in the warm water, letting it wash some of the blood away, before she hears the sound of a door slamming in the distance, followed by an unfamiliar voice several seconds later: “Edelgard? I thought you were out—”

The owner of the voice passes by the half-open bathroom door and stops abruptly. He peers inside, and his brow furrows.

Automatically, Bernadetta shrieks and covers her breasts with her arms. “Stop! Stop looking at me!”

The man, mercifully, has the decency to cover his eyes with his hand once he realizes that he’s staring at a naked stranger. “Sorry, sorry!” he says. “ _Edelgard_!”

“ _What_ is going on out here?” Edelgard says, suddenly appearing in front of the man. “Claude!”

The man, Claude, gestures toward the bathroom, his eyes still covered. “There appears to be a small purple woman in our bathtub,” he says, bewildered.

“Yeah, I know,” Edelgard replies dismissively. She shoos him with one hand. “Now go away; you’re scaring her.”

“ _I’m_ scaring _her_?” Claude yelps, but he does as she says.

Edelgard shakes her head as she steps back into the bathroom and closes the door behind her. “I swear,” she mutters, “I leave for three minutes. Sorry about that. He’s a good guy; he’s just very nosy.”

Bernadetta chuckles nervously and reluctantly lowers her arms.

Edelgard spins around and rummages through the cabinets. She sets a roll of gauze and a tube of antibiotic ointment on the counter next to the sink and places a washcloth, a plastic cup, and a bottle of soap at one corner of the bathtub. She rolls up her sleeves.

The soap makes the wounds sting, but the warmth of the water and the soft, gentle pressure of the washcloth against the cuts soothes some of the pain. Bernadetta closes her eyes and lets Edelgard pour the water over her hair and body, lets her press the cloth to the scrape on her forehead. The bandage on her burned hand is wet and soggy now, and Edelgard pauses to unwrap it. Bernadetta hears a sharp intake of breath at the damage underneath.

“Uh, yeah,” Bernadetta says, opening her eyes. “That…happened this morning. It looks worse than it is, I promise.”

Edelgard politely averts her gaze from Bernadetta’s hand, back to the other injuries. “Most of these do, too,” she says. “Fortunately, your shoulders and outer arms got the bulk of it. You’re just lucky the bite on your neck didn’t hit any important veins.”

It’s true—the bloody bathwater probably looks bad, but the bleeding itself has essentially stopped by now.

“You know a lot about this stuff, huh,” Bernadetta says absentmindedly.

Edelgard pauses in her rinsing, and her eyes seem to glaze over. “I just…wanted to be prepared.”

That’s right—she did say she was hunting earlier. Bernadetta had thought hunters were supposed to wear bright clothes, but she must have been wrong.

“Does Claude hunt, too?” she asks, partially to make small talk, partially to bring Edelgard back to the present.

“Huh? Um—yes,” Edelgard says, shaking her head. “But mostly for my sake. So I don’t have to be alone.”

“You’re lucky to have a friend like that,” Bernadetta says, and she means it. For a long time, she didn’t have any friends to confide in. Her parents made sure of that.

Edelgard smiles faintly. “I suppose I am.” Then she clears her throat. “But enough about me,” she adds. “What about you? Do you live on your own, or…?”

Bernadetta frowns and tries to decide how to answer. “I, uh…do not currently have a place to live away from my parents, no,” she says slowly.

“So, do you have a plan?” Edelgard asks. “You said your parents can’t find out about what happened, but wouldn’t they see all…this?” She gestures to the scratches adorning Bernadetta’s skin.

“Um! Yeah. About that,” Bernadetta says. How should she put it? “They…will not be seeing any of this. Or, uh, any of me. If I can help it.” There. Nailed it.

Edelgard glances from Bernadetta to the duffel bag filled with clothes and other necessities, then back to Bernadetta, and understanding dawns on her face.

“I see,” she says. “Do you…not have anywhere to go, then?”

Bernadetta chuckles sheepishly and shrugs her shoulders. “Yeah, I was sort of hoping I’d, uh, figure that out along the way. Heh.”

Edelgard raises her eyebrows. “So this was a spontaneous decision?”

“I—well, when you put it like that…” Bernadetta says. It’s true. She’d been thinking about running away for so long, but the events that led her to put it into action were completely sudden. She was so focused on just _getting out_ that she didn’t come up with any solid plan for where to go after that. All she knew was that anywhere had to be better than there.

“So that’s a yes,” Edelgard says. “Huh. You didn’t really strike me as the impulsive type.”

“Yeah, you and me both,” Bernadetta mutters.

“Well,” Edelgard says, shaking her hands out and then drying them with a nearby towel, “it’s really late, so at the very least, I can let you stay here overnight. We, ah, used to have a third person living here anyway, so don’t worry about imposing on us. I’ll let you get out and dry off, and then we can do the ointment and everything, okay?”

“Okay,” Bernadetta agrees, trying not to let the relief show on her face. A place to stay that isn’t with her parents. It’s not as far away as she would’ve liked, but it’s remote and cozy, and there’s a kind, smart, lovely young woman helping her out. Even with the wounds on her body and the stinging pain they cause, she can’t help but crack a smile.

—

Edelgard steps outside the bathroom to give Bernadetta her privacy and closes the door behind her, lest any wild Claudes suddenly appear in the hallway again.

Unsurprisingly, she finds the aforementioned culprit in his room directly across the hall, sitting on the edge of his queen-size bed. His head pops up at the sound of the bathroom door closing.

“So?” he says. “You gonna tell me what’s going on or what, Princess?” It’s not rude, the way he says it—just expectant. Curious. Always curious.

“You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?” Edelgard replies as she plops down next to him on the bed. “Shouldn’t you know already?”

“I was not eavesdropping,” Claude protests, sounding positively scandalized and insulted by this assumption. “I was just waiting. Not my fault the bathroom is only ten feet away from my room.”

“Whatever,” Edelgard says. “How much did you hear, then?”

“Bits and pieces,” Claude says. “Something about injuries. Something about not having anywhere to go.” He smirks. “Something about being lucky to have me as a friend.”

Edelgard elbows him in the ribs.

“Shut up,” she says with a laugh. It’s true, of course—she is lucky, and she’s thankful. Even when he’s being a little shit about it.

“Anyway,” she continues, “her name is Bernadetta. I found her in the woods. She was attacked by something. I think it might have been a wolf, judging by the teeth and claw marks, but I could be biased. She refused to go to the hospital, so I brought her back here.”

Claude chews on his lip. “What was she doing out there so late?”

“It seems she ran away from home,” Edelgard says. “But she doesn’t have a place to stay, so I told her she could sleep here for the night. That’s okay with you, right?” She probably should’ve asked him first, but somehow she doubts that Bernadetta would take up too much space.

“Yeah, of course,” Claude says. “Have you decided where she’s gonna sleep?”

“I haven’t gotten that far,” Edelgard says. “I’ll probably let her have my bed, and then I’ll sleep out on the couch.”

“I mean,” Claude says, “you could always sleep in my bed.”

Edelgard snorts. “In your dreams.”

“I’m serious,” Claude says. “I’d feel bad making either one of you sleep on the couch when there’s a bed big enough for two people right here.”

It’s not that the couch is particularly bad or uncomfortable. It’s that Claude used to share his bed—and his room—with Dimitri. It’s probably lonely, Edelgard realizes, sleeping by himself when there used to be someone always next to him, sleeping in a bed that feels too big for his body alone. This is, perhaps, the closest he’ll ever get to admitting that he wants the warmth of another human beside him.

It’s this thought that makes Edelgard say, “Okay.”

She relays the information to Bernadetta while she’s helping her put ointment on her injuries.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” Bernadetta says as she watches Edelgard’s fingers on her skin. She’s in pajamas now, but lifts up the shirt or sleeves as needed to reach the cuts.

“It’s fine,” Edelgard says. “I don’t want you to have to sleep on the couch. Plus, Claude tends to get up early—or just not sleep at all—so it might wake you up if he’s doing something out in the kitchen or the living room.”

Bernadetta yawns. “Is he okay with letting you sleep with him? It’s not, like, weird?”

Edelgard laughs. “I’ve known him since we were kids. Of course it’s not weird.”

Bernadetta’s expression changes at that. She looks almost wistful.

“Well,” she says, “I, uh, I just wanted to thank you. Again. For everything. I sort of thought I was going to die out there. So thank you. Um, for not letting that happen.”

“Of course,” Edelgard replies, glancing away. She can feel the heat starting to reach her cheeks. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

She puts off going to bed for a while, even after showing her room to Bernadetta. She tells herself (and Claude) that she’s staying up to put the laundry into the dryer once the bloodstains are gone, but after that’s done, she has no more excuses. Besides, she’s exhausted. It’s been a long night for all of them.

Claude is still awake when Edelgard finally decides to crawl into bed next to him. That’s no surprise. She hopes to fall asleep immediately, but even with her eyes closed, she can’t help but think about how this was Dimitri’s room—how she’s sleeping in Dimitri’s space.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she mumbles.

“Do what?” Claude asks.

Edelgard laughs bitterly. “Sleep in this fucking _room_.”

Claude just shakes his head. “Yeah,” he says, “me neither.”

They lie like that for a while: both on their backs, staring up at the ceiling. Then Edelgard shifts her body so that she’s right up against him, her head on his bare shoulder (ever since his top surgery, he’ll find any excuse to take his shirt off). Claude doesn’t react immediately—but as Edelgard falls asleep to the sound of her best friend’s breathing, she thinks she feels him wrap an arm around her.


End file.
